Troublesome Boys
by Simplice
Summary: COMPLETE! Natsu and Grey get tricked into stopping their brawl...and go to find Lucy who hasn't shown up at headquarters all day! Hints of LucyxNatsu.
1. Bar Fight

Disclaimer: …

Disclaimer: ….I'm a college kid. I don't own any wonderful, famous stories…drats!

The Fairy Tail tavern…err, headquarters, was loud, very loud. Erza was out on a mission chasing down some bloodthirsty mammoth, and Makarov was playing cards with another "Master", away from headquarters. Natsu and Grey were both at headquarters--with no Lucy, Erza or Makarov to stop them.

The floorboards shook. Fires ignited, only to be frozen out of existence. Glass bottles flew everywhere, as tables were up-ended. Two dozen brawls were taking place across the room, friendly competitions of course, since everybody was nakama.

Mirajane, and Happy, the only two people in the room who hadn't, eventually, gotten sucked into Natsu and Grey's exhibition of manhood (aka catfight over who was more powerful), stood surveying the disaster area.

"Fun as this is, don't you think it's about time to stop? We've already had to renovate the room once already this week…"

"Aye," Happy responded to Mirajane. A big grin lit up the blue cat's face. "I know just how. And he hopped up closer to Mirajane's ear and whispered.

A few moments passed. Natsu was just about to send a fiery punch at Grey when Mirajane's voice called out cheerily, over the racket.

"Lucy!"

Natsu's fist stopped moving, and Grey blanched. There was something about the blonde that made people not want to mess with her. She didn't like watching the two fight very much….

The two turned around and faced the door, only to find it splintered open, but no Lucy standing within its confines.

Natsu's face looked blank for a moment. "Huh?" he queried, and then his face lit up. "Where is she anyways? She hasn't been here all day…"

As Natsu and Grey had quit, the fight died down, without the two rowdiest it just wasn't as fun for everyone else.

Mirajane watched as Natsu and Grey left together to go find Lucy, Happy a step behind them. For now headquarters had survived. She did hate to sic Natsu and Grey on Lucy though…


	2. Only Women Can Get Sick

Lucy woke up at 1 in the afternoon

Lucy woke up at 1 in the afternoon. This was not normal for her, normally she would have woken up to face the day, at least an hour earlier, even on a morning where she begrudged the sun because she had been up all night writing about an adventure the characters in her novel undertook. Upon waking up she immediately wanted to go back to bed.

Lucy felt HORRIBLE.

Her nose was stuffed up so she couldn't breathe through it. Thankfully she had no roommate--she'd have woken her up with snoring loud enough to wake Natsu. Her eyes were gummed shut with a yellow goo, and she had an incredible urge to cough, which just grated against her throat that felt like she'd tried to eat fire. All in all she didn't like knowing that a mere illness had completely, totally, inconceivably ruined every ounce of her attractiveness. It was always a shock to her system, angering her, when she could not control men through her beauty.

No, for Lucy today was not a good day.

Hating herself for getting a cold, hating the world for allowing illness to exist, Lucy climbed out of bed and slipped her feet into slippers with a red heart over each big toe. Her baggy t-shirt (which was her one concession to comfort over fashion—a nice, cozy, t-shirt in the privacy of her own home, but just to sleep in) fell down to her knees. Grumbling the whole way Lucy ventured into the bathroom to wash the goop off of her very pale face.

Still half-asleep, she stumbled into her kitchen afterwards, hungry, but knowing that she needed soup rather than something solid. Her throat was too sore. The loud banging as she closed the cupboard, disappointed, hurt her ears.

_Crap, I didn't go grocery shopping…not that I have any money to do so. Natsu and Gray keep destroying everything on our missions. It takes up half of our pay! Ugh, what did I do to get a cold anyways…_Then it hit her what she'd done, or rather what Natsu had done to her.

Sick and tired of Natsu, sick and tired of being sick, and most certainly sick and tired of not looking her best Lucy decided that bed was the best option. She grabbed a glass of water and some climbed back into bed, sipping it every so often. A book lay on the bed next to her, a romance novel, but as she lay in bed she realized that her body fighting the cold, and the soft comfort of bed after a week-long mission with NO HOTEL had left her more tired than she thought, so the book was left alone.

Lucy's eyes had wandered shut, once, twice, thrice, and then they stayed down, her mouth hanging open so that she could breathe. Her head rolled to the side and she was just falling into a nice sleep, with dreams of a vacation without Natsu terrorizing her on their way (that had become a recurring dream lately, a vacation without destruction, or annoying boys eating fire, or stripping down to boxers….) when…

BAM!!

Her dorm flew open, wood grating as the lock failed to withstand the force throwing it open. Lucy sat bolt upright in bed as three figures wandered into her small apartment.

"Happy where's Lucy? I don't see her anywhere," exclaimed Natsu. Happy ran around the room looking for Lucy.

The threesome of Happy, Natsu and Gray were all vaguely surprised when a figure sat up from the bed glaring at them and throwing a half-full glass of water. Instantly on the offensive Gray froze the water, which promptly hit Natsu square in the head- but failed to knock the hard-headed boy over.

Getting a closer look at the figure in the bed the two males cringed and tried to hide behind each other. Happy just jumped up next to Lucy, grinning. "Found her!"

The boys were in shock. Lucy had never looked so awful, so angry… it scared them, as if they had done something wrong. They hadn't though! They weren't fighting each other-- it didn't occur to them that barging into her apartment, uninvited, might have been the reason for the glare.

"Go away," she croaked, using her voice for the first time that day.

Natsu and Gray turned and looked at each other, Gray comprehending what was wrong, but Natsu totally oblivious. "What's wrong with her," Natsu stage-whispered to his rival.

"She's sick, you idiot," came the annoyed reply.

Natsu's face lit up. "Oh I'm sorry Lucy. It must suck to be a woman. What's it like being sick? I'm glad I'm a man--getting sick would be completely awful."

Lucy's face paled even further if that were possible. …He hadn't thought 'sick' meant…..THAT had he? Anger, even more than previously lit up in her eyes, spreading a red across her cheeks.

Gray fled out of the apartment, and Happy bounced over to the other side of the room. Gray didn't feel the need to stick around to find out anymore: he knew why Lucy hadn't been at the bar all day…err Headquarters all day. Happy figured he didn't want to be next in line in the throwing-things-at-the-idiot-game.

Natsu was, naturally, clueless as to what he implied. He genuinely believed that only women could catch colds--and had no clue what Lucy had interpreted his statement as.


	3. Amends

Fifteen minutes later, literally, Lucy stood huffing and puffing next to her bed, face flushed, eyes glassy, t-shirt hanging to

Fifteen minutes later, literally, Lucy stood huffing and puffing next to her bed, face flushed, eyes glassy, t-shirt hanging to her knees, in an area stripped of anything that could be thrown. On the other hand Natsu was surrounded by pillows, blankets, books, bedside tables and even a lamp—all having been thrown at him. Naturally he was cowering in a corner, wondering what on earth he had said to make Lucy so irate with him. Only girls could get colds…right? So why get angry about that?

Her eyes closing Lucy slumped onto the bed, tired out by her extensive violence. Desperately her hands reached up to clutch her head, holding it, as it pounded violently. "ohh, you just had to come Natsu," she mumbled. At some point in time she had noticed that Grey had fled.

Happy announced his presence again by scampering over to Natsu and quietly informing the brainless boy what the problem with Lucy was. "What, you mean MEN can get colds too," he yelled out astonished.

"SHH!" Happy admonished. "She's sick you need to take care of her or…"

Natsu got a horrified look on his face as he assumed the words that Happy had let trail off, in his whisper. Lucy looked so horrible Natsu automatically assumed that Lucy was going to die on them.

Running up to her he grabbed her shoulder and shook her. "Lucy, Lucy, are you okay? Is there anything I can do?"

Her bleary eyes looked up at him with a glare and he gulped, quickly removing his hands from her. The barely-dressed girl was still not happy with him. He gulped once again: no matter how pretty Lucy was, or how nice, she was scary like no other when angry. Erza wasn't half as scary--Natsu didn't know _why_ he found her so scary though, or why he really NEVER wanted to anger her. That was a question to ponder another day though, as he knew he had amends to make now….

An hour later Natsu found himself carrying a ton of groceries back to Lucy's apartment, then being put to cleaning the mess she'd made throwing things at him. She slept peacefully through it. She had gotten it through his thick skull that he was her slave until she was well.

Upon waking from her nap she looked around at her clean apartment and smelled the food Natsu had prepared. Turned that that when he wasn't blowing things up he made quite the helpful guy. Maybe she'd have him stick around more often. A bit of training and he wouldn't be so unmanageable ALL the time…

Author's Note: Sorry the ending wasn't nearly as good as I'd hoped, and that the chapters are so short. Despite my own dreams, face it, Natsu is not going to pick up on male-female relationships very quickly: he's dense, so there just wasn't much that I was willing to do in the way of fluff.


End file.
